How To Bring Your Vlog From Obscurity To The Top Of YouTube

Is this realistic?

There are countless blog posts and articles offering technical tips and quick success recipes to aspiring YouTube vloggers. The reality, however, isn’t that simple, and you may soon discover that simply following a checklist is not enough to skyrocket your vlog to the top.

However, it’s not impossible given you’re persistent and able to produce content that your viewers have a genuine interest to watch. Here I’ll share 3 key characteristics that I keep seeing in today’s most popular vlogs.

Put your audience first

Before I start, let me stress this again:

Without quality content, no amount of trickery will make you a YouTube star.

And by quality I don’t necessarily mean the video production quality (however, that certainly helps) but rather making something that YOUR audience wants to watch.

As you can see, the channels I pick cover a wide range of topics from travel, to gaming, to marketing, and to YouTube tips and tricks, so it’s not about a topic.

Neither, I’m referring to the technical aspects, like thumbnails, tags, or basic video SEO. That goes without saying.

Instead, I’ll be looking at 3 most fundamental things that I keep seeing in every popular vlog I come across. Here they are:

3 must-haves of a successful vlog

1 Be real

Frankly, nothing turns me off more than watching a cartoonish avatar lip synced to a computer generated voice reading something that sounds like a technical manual.

Therefore, the first things I’d like to point out is PERSONALITY. Most successful channels are all built around strong personalities. Of course, there are exceptions, like big entertainment channels like VEVO or huge corporate vlogs but they’re not the focus of this post.

We all want to follow real people, so don’t be afraid to show your face. You don’t need the perfect look, just be you.

Depending on your budget you may choose to use free music (don’t forget to check out YouTube’s free audio library) or purchase licenses. The biggest advantage of purchasing a license is that it gives you the legal proof in case of any copyright claim or dispute. See how to resolve YouTube copyright claims.

For monetized or business related YouTube channels, I strongly suggest getting explicit written permission or purchasing a license from a royalty-free music marketplace.

Do prominent YouTubers use free music?

I certainly can’t speak for all YouTubers. In my own personal experience of working with some of them, most prefer to license the music to be able to fend off any possible copyright claims that can affect their earnings.

For instance, Casey Neistat does not use copyright-free music but rather license music from independent artists. He is kind enough to share some of the artist he works with in this Soundlcoud playlist.

If you follow up with the artists, some of them explicitly say that their music is not copyright free.

Looking for music for your videos?

As many vloggers do, you can connect with individual artists and negotiate licenses (or just ask nicely), however working our the agreemens with every new artist might take away precious time that could be otherwise spent of actually making videos.

If you are dedicated to making videos on the regular basis and want to be able to pick a fitting soundtrack for each new video without purchasing new licenses, getting a music library subscription will provide much more bang for your buck.